Cyberwar mobilization and the control for Internet

The Cyberwar chapter (reassuringly renamed Securing Our Digital Future Cyber Space Policy Review) is starting and in a hurry.

The Obama administration is pushing for a rapid review of cyber space monitoring procedure and pushing for the appointment of a Cyber Czar.

How this will impact the privacy and information freedom is not yet clear but again we are seeing the ghost of cyber terrorism being used to validate more and more Big Brother measures.

Obama’s plan and its repercussions will be clearer in the following 2 months  in the meanwhile if interested to the still vague guidelines and principle policies that will shape Internet in the following months you may want to read this: http://tinyurl.com/mk5ngu

The collapse of oil standard

The economy today is based on oil, oil revenues flood the markets and represents the backbone and blood of the global economy; oil supplies provide fuel to to the global production engine.
When the amount of reserves and barrels of oil start decreasing due to peak oil the confidence in the future of the market and the flood of petrodollars supporting it disappears quickly.
This event has an historical precedent with gold in the 20th Century.
A century ago almost all the world’s currencies were linked to gold and most of the rest to silver. Currencies were readily interchangeable, gold anchored exchange rates and the physical supply of gold stabilized the money supply over the long term.
The gold standard collapsed in the wake of World War I. Wartime financing with un-backed paper currency led to widespread inflation. European nations tried to resume the gold standard in the 1920s, but the gold supply was insufficient and inelastic. A ferocious monetary squeeze and competition across countries for limited gold reserves followed and contributed to the Great Depression. After World War II, nations adopted the dollar-exchange standard. The U.S. dollar was backed by gold at $35 per ounce, while the rest of the world’s currencies were backed by dollars. The global money stock could expand through dollar reserves.
President Richard Nixon de-linked the dollar from gold in 1971 (to offset the U.S.’s expansionary monetary policies in the Vietnam era), and major currencies began to float against one another in value. But most global trade and financial transactions remained dollar-denominated, as did most foreign exchange reserves held by the world’s central banks. The exchange rates of many currencies also remained tightly tied to the dollar. The rest is history.
Today we are going on the same road, this time not gold but oil will be the final prize for competing countries try to make a living with the last available resources.

Anonima Sondaggi

Leggendo la stampa italiana durante l'ultima settimana colpisce l'attenzione prestata da tutti ai sondaggi sulla popolarità di Berlusconi.
Tutti erano ansiosi di vedere se il disastro combinato da Papi e Noemi avrebbe pesato sulla sua "reputazione" politica e sulle imminenti elezioni europee.
Immediatamente dopo la figuraccia la macchina propagandistica del PDL ha sfornato subito dei sondaggi che supportavano la non scalfita ammirazione degli italiani per il nostro Papi.
Peccato che quasi mai appaia il nome della agenzia che ha realizzato i sondaggi.
Non che gli italiani si sorprendano di questo abituati come sono ad una informazione presappochista e manipolata, più pettegolezzo ed insinuazioni che fatti e contraddittori.
Un giornale serio dovrebbe pubblicare come minimo il nome dell'agenzia, affinche tutti possano controllare a chi appartiene e se sia obiettiva.
Sarebbe chiedere troppo di pubblicare in pdf come fanno alcuni giornali all'estero copia del rapporto o informazione e sito web della agenzia in questione, tuttavia il nome sarebbe già un passo avanti in un paese in cui i sondaggi vengono svolti dagli amici dei politici.
Infatti gli ultimi sondaggi citati da Papi sono stati svolti dalla Euromedia Research che è il settore operativo di Ghial Media Srl. Ghial è l'acronimo di Ghisleri Alessandra, la scienziata che curava la strategia di Papi Berlusconi.
Quando si vuole cercare informazioni sulla reputazione di questa agenzia basta visitare il favoloso sito web: http://www.euromediaresearch.it/ si arriva ad una pagina che propone un attraente animazione web e l'indirizzo della società. Niente altro solo l'indirizzo e basta, niente informazione su chi fa i sondaggi, sulla storia della azienda, sulle metodologie impiegate, sui criteri di ricerca ed intervista. Niente di niente. Le agenzie di sondaggi in tutto il mondo lavorano per crearsi una reputazione, pubblicano tutto per mostrare che sono trasparenti e di conseguenza affidabili quando si tratta di intraprendere una analisi obiettiva ed essere quindi ingaggiate, in Italia invece basta essere amici di Papi.
Questi sondaggi sono stati ripresi da tutte le testate ed agenzie giornalistiche italiane. La maggior parte delle testate non ha menzionato la fonte, quelle invece piu' audaci hanno menzionato il nome della agenzia senza aggiungere altro.
Ora mi chiedo io, questa situazione sarebbe politicamente un'arma preziosa per l'opposizione; smascherare la manipolazione non solo mediatica ma anche statistica della realtà in Italia. Perchè non lo raccontano, perchè nessuno dice niente?
Forse perchè sono tutti peccatori quando si tratta di verità ed obiettività.

La RIVOLUZIONE!!!!!

Guardiamo la qualita' dell'informazione in Italia con il seguente articolo pubblicato su Repubblica ed intitolato: Arriva "la rivoluzione Brunetta" Ddl approvato da Consiglio ministri

A giudicare dal titolo e come confermato da Berlusconi dovrebbe essere una vera e propria rivoluzione, ed infatti si vede quanto spazio viene dedicato a descrivere questo evento epocale nella storia italiana:

Tra i tanti cambiamenti previsti, i diversi meccanismi di retribuzione basati sulla premialità: "Solo il 25% dei dipendenti pubblici, e il sindacato è d'accordo, avrà a disposizione il 50% di tutte le risorse destinate alla premialità. - ha anticipato il ministro - Non è stato fatto mai neanche nel privato se non per qualche iniziativa singola".

Il giornalista ha fatto bene a menzionare in anticipo che il sindacato e' d'accordo con questa rivoluzione copernicana della pubblica amministrazione, se il sindacato e' d'accordo ci possiamo fidare ed evitare di leggere il resto o indagare ulteriormente su che casino stanno combinando.
Peccato che il lettore italiano normale non capira' per niente che succede visto che i giornali italiani hanno la pessima abitudine di iniziare con i distinguo, commenti, storielle varie per poi mettere la notizia vera alla fine, ossia quando un lettore normale si stanca e smette di leggere (triste ma vero).
In piu' quando descrive il contenuto di questa rivoluzione lo fa in termini esistenzialisti limitandosi ad una riga per giunta confusa. Speriamo che quando si saranno ripresi dallo sforzo di scrivere possano completare l'articolo elencando ' i tanti cambiamenti previsti'

Social spending and inequality

Here some interesting trends in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s latest “Society at a Glance Report.”
Check this very interesting chart:


Here’s how to read this chart. The horizontal axis shows public social spending as a percent of net national income. The vertical axis shows the Gini coefficient, which is a measure of income inequality. A low Gini coefficient means a country has more equal income distribution, while a high Gini coefficient shows more unequal distribution.
The interesting part about Italy is the amount of social spending and the results in terms of social improvement this spending brings to the people.
We are the only major industrial country with a very high social and income inequality.
Despite spending almost 30% of our national net income the results are discomforting. The only developed country faring worst is United States which is spending only 18%, almost half of Italy spending and with slightly worst results. Everyone else regardless of the spending is faring astronomically better than Italy.
This is telling us something about how the spending is done in Italy. Spending is not finalized to real social improvement but it becomes capital flushed in the public sector with little or none oversight which is routinely looted by corrupt officials and politicians and distributed to their cronies, affiliates and families. This capital which should be targeting the reduction of inequalities is becoming in first instance the source and engine of the growing inequality gap.
It would be nice at least once to see the Italian media reporting these news in order to start a debate on what kind of society is Italy devolving into.
Unfortunately there is little hope of this in a country whose media are muzzled and tamed by the Prime Minister and the people is either band-wagoning on the looting parade or silently living in denial and apathy.

Globale warming does not exist in Italy !

The Italian Senate has erased the issue of global warming from the political agenda following a request of our most talented scientific minds: Marcello Dell’Utri, Domenico Nania e Adriana Poli Bortone (all members of the PDL governing Party).
Following their indications is now denying any human responsibility for the climate change occurring.
The document was signed by 34 senators of the majority party PDL and asked also to intervene urgently with the European Parliament and the G8 to rectify this misunderstanding of the scientists from all over the world in believing that global warming if unchecked will produce disasters soon.
According to this great scientific minds of the Italian Parliament we can go on polluting, ransacking and destroying as usual since there is no proof that humans are causing damage to the environment.
It would be interesting to know how much these potheads have been paid by Eni and other energy companies to support this madness.
For sure it will be a good laugh to see the government explaining to the EU these solid scientific conclusions.
Another proof that Italy is slowly drifiting into complete denial, isolation and devolution.

IMF Rescue Plan exacerbating the Crisis !

Turkey and Latvia were in the news last week, having joined the list of governments whose IMF disbursements are being withheld because they find it politically impossible to impose the required punishments on their citizens.The IMF sees these measures as necessary and pre-determined – in most cases by the borrowing countries' having run-up unsustainable external or budget imbalances. But in fact the IMF has a long track record – dating back decades – of imposing unnecessary and often harmful conditions on borrowing countries.Latvia missed a 200 million euro disbursement from the IMF in March for not cutting its budget enough. According to press reports, the government wants to run a budget deficit of 7% of GDP for this year, and the IMF wants 5%. Latvia is already cutting its budget by 40%, and is planning to close some public hospitals and schools in order to make the IMF's targets, prompting street protests.
Latvia's GDP crashed by 18% in the first quarter of this year, after a 10.3% drop in the preceding quarter. These are among the worst declines in the world. This indicates that the IMF's prescription is serious overkill. The purpose of IMF aid is supposedly to make any necessary adjustment easier, not worse.
Pakistan is facing serious political problems right now, having recently launched a major offensive against a growing Taliban insurgency. Slowing Pakistan's economy at a time when the global economic crisis is already doing that may not be the best policy from the point of view of political stability. The IMF has negotiated an increase in Pakistan's fiscal deficit from 3.4% to 4.6% of GDP, but is holding the line against lowering interest rates.
In almost all of its standby arrangements negotiated over the last year, the IMF has included conditions that will reduce output and employment in situations where economies are already shrinking.

Coal Supply May Be Vastly Overestimated: Discovery News

Coal Supply May Be Vastly Overestimated: Discovery News

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FIAT show!

The recent Fiat shopping spree is raising few questions on what is going on with corporations around the world:

1) where Fiat is getting the money to merge with Chrysler and get control of Opel, Saab, GM Europe and Latin America?
Just few months ago Fiat was in so big troubles that the Italian government had to create a new auto plan to stop plumbing profits. A new incentive plan was hastily devised just for FIAT after Marchionne made clear that the group was risking not surviving the year and threatened massive lay-offs. Few months after FIAT was supposedly still in trouble but was seeing some green shoots with the Chrysler joint-venture. Few weeks more and today FIAT wants to become the second largest auto corporation of the world.

2) Is the Italian government involved?

Marchionne declared at the beginning of the year that he was seeing by 2010 only a handful of auto companies surviving and that FIAT needed to grow big fast to survive the collapse of the auto industry. Undoubtedly he is taking advantage of the situation created by the collapse of GM and Chrysler to scavenge companies for a bargain price.
Still is hard to believe that a company that was in dire finances just few months ago can pull out such a plan without any financial backing of a strong partner. Is the Italian government providing financial support with taxpayer money to the expansionist dreams of Marchionne? I think so!

3) Why Marchionne is so anxious to close the deal so fast? Is he aware of what is coming?

Marchionne is pushing for a deal in matter of days. For sure the fact that GM has a deadline till the 1st of June to return profitable or go bankrupt has something to do with his eagerness to grab as much as possible now at bargain price and easily rather than later when GM will be under bankruptcy protection and red tape and political litigation will make the task more burdensome. It is not clear yet if the bankruptcy protection for GM will be chapter 7 or 11 so either will be shut down completely or will be downsized, nationalized but still operating at minimum capacity. Still beside this the urgency of Marchionne and the rapidity of the events is something unprecedented and it smells horribly.

Bankruptcy Outsourcing!

A disturbing trend in a global economy is the bankruptcy outsourcing we are starting to witness in the world.

Global companies are taking bail-outs from different countries and in some cases from more than one at the same time. Bail-outs are becoming for some companies a new form of revenue. GM for example has been bailed-out from the Canadian government after scaremongering plant closures in Ontario. Unicredit the Italian bank which has invested and lent heavily in Eastern Europe has been supported by the Polish and Austrian government. Greek banks have asked contributions to Eastern European countries to leave their capitals in the country and after some weeks moved back to Athens a big bulk of their assets.

Wherever corporations have employment and financial leverage with the local government a bail-out request is being put forward. It is not always a request for money but also a request for favours and deregulation, economic crisis is allowing companies to obtain advantages that until 1 year ago were considered serious infringements. Eastern European governments not notoriously rigid in their supervision are in this period closing not one but both eyes. Companies are threatening that if ad hoc measures are not undertaken their financial situation could be deteriorating and they would be left with no choice than moving their assets and capitals to different location.
Taxpayers are effectively paying a bribe to corporations for the luxury of keeping inefficient, corrupt and broke companies in their backyard. If a company is broke should be allowed to fail, we are delaying the inevitable buying some time with our savings.

Though the interesting scenario especially in Europe will be to assist to the collapse of one of those corporations, which country will take the paternity of a fiasco and will make its citizen pay for this? how fast and how seriously the economical infection will spread to other involved countries?

Unfortunately we have a monetary union in Europe but we do not have yet a single reference for crisis like this, ECB cannot and will not cover the losses leaving to local central banks such issues. The Iceland-England quarrel on the lost assets of UK councils who invested in the failed Icelandic banks teaches us a lesson on how this issue can bring to a fracture or collapse of the European cooperation. If countries will start to freeze each other investments and assets to cover the losses we will have a Great Depression 2.0 in a matter of weeks.